Asset management organisation Hermes Investment Management has reported a 30.2% mean gender pay gap for fixed hourly pay as at April 2017.
The organisation has reported its gender pay gap data in line with the government’s gender pay gap reporting regulations and ahead of the private sector submission deadline of 4 April 2018.
The gender pay gap reporting regulations require organisations with 250 or more employees to publish the difference between both the mean and median hourly rate of pay for male and female full-time employees; the difference between both the mean bonus pay and median bonus pay for male and female employees; the proportions of male and female employees who were awarded bonus pay; and the proportions of male and female full-time employees in the lower, lower middle, upper middle and upper quartile pay bands.
Hermes Investment Management’s median gender pay gap for fixed hourly pay as at April 2017 is 24.4%.
Its mean gender pay gap for bonuses paid in the year to April 2017 is 63.1%, and the median gender pay gap for bonus payments is 56.7%. Over this period, 88.1% of female employees received a bonus payment compared to 91.1% of male employees.
More than one in 10 (15.9%) of employees in the highest pay quartile at Hermes Investment Management are female, compared to 33% in the second quartile, 44.3% in the third quartile and 53.4% in the lowest pay quartile.
Hermes Investment Management attributes its gender pay gap to a lack of senior female representation across the organisation, and particularly in the investment and business development department. The firm also believes that its gender pay gap is linked to the fact that, historically, asset management has been a male dominated industry.
To address its gender pay gap, Hermes Investment Management has set a number of organisation-wide targets, with the ultimate aim of achieving gender parity across the business. Across Hermes Investment Management as a whole as at August 2017, 38% of its workforce are female. Its 2018 target range is to achieve between 35% and 50% female representation. At board level, there are 29% of female employees as at August 2017, compared to the 2018 target range of 30% to 50%, and 23% of senior management as at August 2017 are female, compared to the 2018 target range of 25% to 40%. To date, there has been an increase of more than 4% of female employees at the organisation.
To further tackle its gender pay gap, Hermes Investment Management has committed to annually reporting on its gender demographics at board level, senior management level and across the firm generally. It will also recruit a diversity and inclusion manager to work with executive search organisations that are committed to gender diversity and which provide shortlists where at least 30% of the candidates are women, identify diverse internal candidates for succession planning and internal roles and establish a talent recruitment programme. All executive committee members and line managers have received unconscious bias and employee relations training, with line managers additionally receiving employment risk awareness training, and new starters at the organisation also complete a diversity e-learning module.
Hermes Investment Management has signed up to the Women in Finance Charter, which encourages diversity among senior leadership, and the 30% Club that sets the target of having at least 30% of the organisation’s board members as female. The firm has also joined the City Parents programme, which aims to support city-based professionals with work-life balance through networking, events, seminars, coaching and mentoring.
In addition, Hermes Investment Management supports local mentoring schemes and provides internal mentoring for staff, is establishing a Women’s Network, which will be led by senior women within the organisation and has participated in The Female Voice project, which speaks to students about a career in asset management. The organisation is also striving to achieve an inclusive culture.
Saker Nusseibeh, chief executive officer at Hermes Investment Management, and Harriet Steel (pictured), board director and head of business development at Hermes Investment Management, said in the report: “We recognise that to close our gender pay gap of 30.2%, we need to increase senior female representation across the firm, in particular in investment and business development.
“Historically, asset management has been male dominated due to a lack of females following professions requiring [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] subjects, resulting in talent pool challenges and fewer females available for senior positions.
“While our gender pay gap is likely to be on par with the rest of the asset management industry, it is simply not good enough. We need to work to change this imbalance across Hermes as well as the rest of the industry. [Organisations] like ours need to widen the pool of people from which we recruit, encourage the brightest into the industry irrespective of their specific qualifications and create an environment that enables them to flourish and contribute over the long-term.”
